I finished up the disc brake mounts yesterday as well, I forgot to post it. The rear has slots so the disc brake caliper can side when you slide the wheel axle. That way your disc brake caliper is always dead nuts on the rotor

J, I made this tab for you

Here is a picture of the side view for my brother Jason so he can change the colors and design. I need to put the basket on and finish all the little details like all the cable routes and such.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Starting yesterday, I have been working on a project for Hatfield's restaurant located in Hollywood. The restaurant has moved and the new location is very spacious. I was chosen by the designer Alexis Readinger of Preen Design and Licensed contractor Jon Baer of Baer Construction Inc. to build the main focus point.

The job is anything from easy........ I decided to do it just because I really like the project so here we go.

The design calls for a light to be located in the center of the room hanging from the ceiling. This sounds really simple but there is more.

If you look at the design it has many hex and pentagons hanging........ I think you all remember seeing these pictures in early high school chemistry and feeling like you will never understand it......

: The plan - To build a 3D model of a molecular structure with bonds linking everything together. Plus to add to it - some need lights inside of them! Oh, did I forget that they all need to be covered in different colored fabric so the light is dimmer and has a strong warm glow.

Sounds easy except there is 18 giant 18" hexs and pentagons, if you do that math - I will give you a second, ok, That takes up a lot of space.

Here is the side view Alexis drew up for me to start the project

Here are some pictures from the start of the project, about a 1000 feet of material and well over 500 cuts. Check it.

The mighty bandsaw - she is over 4 years old and feeling it

a few sides of the Hex cut

Every piece is cut with 60 deg angles on both sides

but they are 180 deg different angles

( the tube needs to be rotated 180 deg for the second 60 deg cut )

a few more, only about 120 more

good enough for tonight, about 195 sides cut.

about 95% are 10.59" the rest will become the bonds or maybe a coffee table.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Just trying to tie up all the odds and ends around the shop and finish up the Beach Cruzer for my brother today.

I also had to repair Jim from Orange 20 bikes 1969 Schwinn Orange Crate Sting Ray by rewelding on some brackets for the fender, that broke off who knows how long ago. I love those things, this one has a drum brake which was one of the more rare Schwinn Sting Rays of the day. As you can see it has the car style Hurst shifter on the top tube of the bike, later years never had that. Mostly due to kids crashing and getting their you know what slammed against the shifter.

The Beach cruzer is coming along and goes to powdercoat tomorrow so it needs to be done today. Just finishing up the disc brake mounts and then were done. The bars and rack will come later as they don't need to be coated at the same time.

I took a picture of the Bridgeport Milling Machine - Its rad and scary at the same time. It can make you a million dollars or hurt you just as fast.

I have heard this a bunch of times from people in the manufacturing world " IT IS ONE OF THE FEW MACHINES IN THE WORLD WITH THE ABLILITY TO MAKE ITSELF ". Thought that was kinda a cool line. This machine is from 1981 but it is very common to see machines still running as old as 1920 or so.

and last but not least is a picture of our new shop dogs. They are both brother but look nothing like each other. The white one is called Willis and the little guy is called Poe. They are protecting the shop now, not with fear more on the lines of killing with love cause they aren't very mean and kinda dumb, but really funny to hang out with. 3 months old and growing........

Friday, November 20, 2009

The project at hand today is to build my brother Jason, a cool beach cruzer or should we call it a " Beach Sleeper " ( it will look like a normal beach cruzer until the the race is on and it blows the doors off any one else out there)

The first thing was to ditch all the crap that comes on these piles.

Next thing was to adjust the rear end and shorten it a bit and make it 135mm rear spacing. I decided to use some Surly dropouts to support the crew back in Minneapolis, plus they work and weld really well.

Part 1

I laced up a single speed cassette rear hub with a disc brake up to a set of Velocity Deep V brown rims. The front is an Shimano XT disc hub with a matching Deep V rim. All strung together with some good old PHIL Wood spokes.

Part 2 will be making the bars and tuning up the front end. The idea is to make a rad basket and bar/stem combo for it.

I think this bike will always be my favorite bike I have built, because I seem to "drag" it out over my move to California, changes in my job, changes in my life and so on. The bike was called my "career project" by my brother Jason, o yeah Thanks Jason for those inspiring words.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Well, I broke the rules and worked today.... I think I do every Sunday but either way...

Here is what I worked on today.

I did the production run for Talisman Tattoo machines, the welding is kinda complex for small part. It goes fast if you just hammer it out. I made a video to show how fast I can tig weld up the small parts. http://www.talismantattoomachines.com/

I have been welding and working on tattoo machines for about 5 or 6 years now. My brother and I started working with the famous machine builder Adam Cifferi, we helped Adam fine tune the Bulldog machines. The machines he builds are mostly sand casted and then machined. Check out his web site as well.http://honorableirons.lifetimeofsol.com/adamCiferri.php

Well, I think I was like 16 or 17 when I first seen the BIKER BUILD OFF - Discovery Channel shows. I was pumped, then the show BUILD OR BUST came out on Speed Channel....

I remember the intro to the show was kinda like this one, but its close to this one so you get the idea.....

I was in Cleveland doing my Aerospace welding school and 18 years old when I finished it up. I returned to Minneapolis, a few months later I recieved a phone call on my drive home from my newer job, the call was from Russell Mitchel of Exile cycles asking if I would like to be the fabricator for Exile cycles.Oh, and the twist was there was 2 weeks to move all my tools and stuff from Minnesota because Discovery wanted to film the next Biker Build Off against Billy Lane......

Its funny to watch those old videos and remember what I was thinking or doing at the time........

Never expected to end up where I did........... Makes me Smile

Thanks goes to Jake, Dylan, and the crew for making it happen for me.....

Monday, November 9, 2009

well I am not going to show much more then this because its supose to be a surprise when the bikes get unvailed in Richmond. at the North American Hand Built Show. Chances are I will finish it up and just post pictures.... So stay tuned.... Maybe a few more days.....

Fresh welding on the Bottom Bracket

Coker Unicycle project is back online with a vengeance..... Get ready.... I picked out the tubing today at Fairing..... I got so pumped up.....

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Got to the airport super early for my flight; In my wait I ran in to my buddy Keith Nelson from the band Buckcherry. He had the exact same flight time as me but headed to Chicago. So we both went for coffee at Starbucks for an hour to waste some time and catch up on what new.
Aboard the OLD silver bullet ( American Airlines ) I safely landed in Vegas 46 minutes later to a waiting $20 dollar taxi ride to the SEMA auto show only a few blocks from the airport.

I rolled up and cruzed the entire show, with it being the last day everyone is ready to go home and pack up promptly at 4pm when the show ends so you really need to make the rounds before 4pm.

I made an important stop at the Lincoln Electric booth to chat with Mickey Holmes the Motorsports director for Lincoln. To my surprise Wyatt Swaim ( the legendary Mister TIG ) was there doing some product demos and a few seminars to race teams. Note: This guy wrote the book on precision TIG welding starting back in the 1970s and has been an asset to Lincoln's TIG program ever since. I was pumped to meet him!

4pm hit and it was time to rock ! Paul, Joe and I rushed to work tearing down the Roland Sands Design booth, a whopping 120 x 30 foot booth in under an hour. Like normal we tore it down so fast the crews in charge of getting the trucks in and out for loading were not ready so we had to wait a few hours before we could get the trailers in to the loading area. 9 pm we finished up loading, pumped to get out of there and headed back to LA we noticed the lights not working on one of the trailers. So the drive back to LA would need to happen in the morning on Saturday.

A few hours later, Chad from METAL ASYLUM ( Phoenix, AZ ) the punk that does a bunch of my project paint work decided to take me out partying in Vegas.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Yesterday I finished up all the custom dropouts for the Schwinn Super Sport frame, other then a grinding wheel exploding and cutting my leg, I got a lot done. I made like 10 different dropouts before I found the one that I went with.

Rock Shox Disc brakes front and rear. The rear I decided to put on one of the new Avid 3G Sweep rotor they sent to me for concept projects, I just need to lace the disc brake wheel for the rear now. I shortened the forks an inch and the rear end of the frame 1.5 inches, it should ride like my Volume Cutter its about a 1/4 inch off the overall bike specs. If only Schwinn built them like that from the beginning.

The goal of this Schwinn is to build a concept 1960's fillet brazed cycle cross bike or a kind of urban speedy delivery bike. Plus it lets me test out my frame table before the big project hits the floor in a week.

Here are some pictures of the Hand Pedal bike I worked on last week. Everything fit, my custom Stem/Bottom Bracket worked perfect plus the shifter bolted up great. It was at Orange 20 bikes in Hollywood.